Again, as in my past posts, one cannot forget the human aspect of flying. Night flight from this SEL pilots point of view is tough at best. I can see how a bright planet like Venus be mistaken for an oncoming landing light of a plane. Granted, this plane was over an inky black ocean if I understand the position and the missing position lights **may** have given subtle clues that the first officer was looking further then he realized. Point being is that it's easy to make judgement, but we are human. Thankfully other than altitude deviations, a few bruises by passengers, it was a "non event" in the full scheme of things. I wonder if ATC even saw the deviations for as quick as it happened and corrected?

Non pilots may not realize, that at least down here in the deep south of MS, flying at 7000 feet under the cover of night, your mind can play tricks on you when there are more lights above you then below you because the haze below you conceals the lights. Breeding grounds for spatial disorientation. I actually found it easier to fly IMC when I got my IA rating because the nav lights give off a soft glow making it look lighter outside from the lights reflecting off the clouds. Plus being on gauges, reduces the chances of leans or spatial disorientation.

I'm surprised that no one has commented on the fact that the deliberate actions of a pilot, resulting in injuries, were reported as "clear air turbulence". It seems to me that that would be filing a false report either by the pilots or the airline

Probably it was "just" the airline's PR dept / spin doctor launching the "turbulence story". They don't need to follow any (FAA) rules...

But apparently they still reported the truth to the authorities (and they better have!) - otherwise they could have hardly found out about the real cause...

I think the biggest thing at fault here is air Canada lying to passengers that it was turbulence. Also maybe the rule allowing pilots to sleep while in cockpit seat. Anyone can feel confused straight after waking up and if you think you are going to have midair collision any normal person would do anything they could to avoid that. Think this is a situation where you can see a funny side but also highlights things that need to change in order to avoid a much more serious incident.

Does sound like air Canada has right attitude over this from what I've read. Seems to be looking at ways to avoid it happening again and even tho it has pointed out the captain was at fault for engaging first officer in what was happening it doesn't sound like either were punished which is good. Ot sure if it's fair to blame captain for telling first officer about the plane they were near. I'm guessing it was more conversation as people would normally want to know what had woke them. In this case it was the captain getting information about the other plane so he could of just answered first officers question.

Middle of the night, years ago, I was flying down V-3 which is right over the east cast of Florida going North south.. I saw this light and it got brighter, it wasn't moving.. looked like a collision was imminent.. I made a hard right turn to avoid hitting that Train locomotive 6,000 feet below me.. No Joke.. night time can play games with you...